<p>I got my FA Package today from George Washington University! 47.2k$ a year; 38k from grants and awards and 9k of loans.</p>
<p>
Nice - congrats to your D! Interesting about them offering the research scholarship the first year. They must like your D. If money is a concern you might want to see if there is a possiblity of more following years. At least you knew enough to know it was one year. I know families who don’t realize one year scholarships are not going to be there later on. </p>
<p>After talking to my brother and finding out his S has only JUST applied to one rolling school (Penn State) so far I have to shout out THANK YOU CC after talking to him. Lets see S has 5 acceptances, one deferral and will hear from 3 more schools this month. Nephew has applied to one school. One. He tells me his S has told him he can’t submit his other apps til the teachers/GC does something even though they are common app schools. I have been telling brother for months that it is better to apply early to rolling schools but he fails to listen. …sigh I also told him that it sounds a little fishy about needing to wait for the teachers and GC. I just hope nephew gets accepted somewhere. </p>
<p>I previously mentioned we have two application processes going on in our house right now. 10yo D is applying to 5 middle schools. 2 apps were due today. H dropped one off on Tuesday and I sent one priority mail with delivery confirmation on Monday. Wouldn’t you know that the one I mailed on Monday was delivered to our house Thursday as if it were addressed to here. Really weird and I did not have time to follow up on why that happened. I did have to take an extra long coffee break today (or was I in an offsite meeting??) to hand deliver the one I mailed Monday. thank goodness I am frequently out of my office at meetings or at vendors on this very busy day so no one wondered where I was. </p>
<p>My Father called tonight to tell me he cancelled the appt for his U/S tomorrow because his cleaning lady was coming. He rescheduled it for Tues at 9:30. I deliberately scheduled it for Sat so I wouldn’t have to take a day off work. I asked him if he was nervous about leaving the cleaning lady alone…no but he didn’t think he could. arrgghhhh. So te next Sat appt is 4 weeks from now. Thankfully he doesn’t go back to his dr. til March so it works out. This is the guy who can’t use a clicker but has no problem figuring out how to mess up my schedule.</p>
<p>congrats rOkAng! Hope that is affordable for you.</p>
<p>Congratulations arisamp! Wonderful news about the merit $$ and the research, too. I’m sure (since this was your d’s safety) they are wooing her. Nice to be wanted!!</p>
<p>Congratulations to all who have received good news lately! I have been reading along with interest, but haven’t had much to add to the conversation. This news makes me wish my daughter had had more colleges on her list with EA (only one offered EA out of eight–and that decision isn’t out yet).</p>
<p>I think her school’s policy is to send midyear grades to all colleges to which the student has applied. Only one college (U.Va.) has asked her for them. I cannot imagine in that case that her midyear grades are determinative (in that she is a Jefferson nominee, is a legacy and has had a 4.0 UW/5.0+ W through junior year, and a 4.0 UW/5.5 or so W 1st semester senior year.) </p>
<p>In general, do experienced applicants view a specific request for midyear grades as meaning something more than just a reminder to make sure the application is complete?</p>
<p>Don’t read anything into the request for midyear grades. It does not mean the admission decision hinges on the last term grades, nor does it mean the candidate is about to get the super duper scholarship. It means merely that the school wants a complete file.</p>
<p>Mommylaw, I’m sorry to hear of your loss of your dad suddenly a year ago.</p>
<p>Idinct, you and your mom are in my prayers.</p>
<p>RenMom, welcome back. We’ve missed you. Sorry to hear about your mom’s issues…many of us are struggling with these parental memory/cognitive losses, whether accompanied by other health issues or not. It IS frightening, and I know your mom must appreciate having your help and support. </p>
<p>Kathie, congrats on the robotics scholarship! Awesome! Do you think your son could create a robot that could control the TV and DVD players for our aging parents without remote controls…just verbal commands? Now THAT’s an application with a market! </p>
<p>Holliesue, wonderful news! I’m proud of her too!</p>
<p>Sb had the easiest finals week of her life. Went in very strong, so no pressure, and an exam schedule that gave her 2 days off. Sun/Mon she does an overnight/shadow visit to one of her schools. We’ve already been there twice before so this is to really focus in on classes, faculty in her major, and seeing how it “feels.” She’s excited.</p>
<p>I just saw online that S was deferred from his number 1 choice. ;-( He never checks this email account and I think I will let him wait for regular mail to see the decision. We had an inkling this was coming, they called his GC and asked for updates from his teachers. Midyear grades do not come out til Feb. He has not been working as hard as he could be, and he knows it. Unfortunately he is happy with the other schools that have already accepted him so I don’t think this is going to be the kick in the bum to motivate him and it is probably too late anyway. He has been grounded the past week and will be til midterms/finals are over so he has spent more time on school work, just not sure how productive it has been. </p>
<p>love the kid on the couch!</p>
<p>mosb - congrats on a closing up a great semester. And the fact that your D is happy to go to schools nearby will make the revisiting and choosing so much easier. My D has a couple of contenders she hasn’t ever seen, even though we have done a ton of visiting over the past couple of years. Spring break will be very crucial around here.</p>
<p>mamom - I’m sorry to hear your frustrating news. Sometimes a deferral is just a deferral, where we figure they liked the kid but just want to see how s/he fits in with the entire pool of applicants. It must be hard knowing they made a decision based on specific issues that you feel could have been handled better by your son. I’m glad it was a deferral and not an outright rejection - who knows, lots of other kids might have lackluster first semesters, too!</p>
<p>And of course it’s wonderful that he has other desirable acceptances. We all know that in the long run, the fact that a kid can go to a school that they love, and that fits them, is way more important than whether they pulled that Chem grade up in January. But it does test our parental willpower to live through this process.</p>
<p>My D “could have” done better all through HS. I’m not going to sweat it now, but it’s taken me walking through a bit of mental fire to get to some peace with that. I definitely love my kid on the couch, and I can’t wait until the world stops throwing grades and other arbitrary things at me by which I’m supposed to judge her. </p>
<p>Your post also reminded me to confront the reality that deferrals and rejections are going to be part of this process. I am so happy for holliesue’s D and mosb’s D, who both found schools that were all great matches for them, that they like enormously. If I could have waved a magic wand, maybe I would have wished that experience on my D, too. But in her case, because of who she is and what she wants, she inevitably has reaches and downright longshots. And because she is by no means a wunderkind (and there probably isn’t a kid alive who is, in this way), she will have several rejections, maybe as many as 7 or 8. She’s definitely asking for it - but this is a kid who’s chosen a life filled with constant rejection, anyway. </p>
<p>They may all come at the end; she may get her first one next week. But she’s ready for it, I know. She knows that she has asked for a very intense set of results and choices and will welcome the triumphs and heartbreak -not that she’s a masochist - but she feels taking the chances is worth the potential pain. </p>
<p>Sometimes it hits me that those days are coming, and mamom’s post reminds me that I may have feelings of “maybe if you’d only …” and not just “aw, gee, that’s rough, kid.” It’s only natural. I may have come to peace with her stats and record, but I have work to do on my attitude about the apps and the auditions. </p>
<p>This is definitely a situation where your ability to believe they “did their best” is challenged. I truly think that they do their best all the time, with all that they have to deal with. And the results will have an ultimate “rightness,” even when they include disappointment. The only kid I truly feel sorry for is the one with all reaches and a safety s/he dislikes. That is definitely not my kid’s situation, and I know I’ll get my wish that she’ll move happily into a school she’s excited about next fall, no matter how many rough times we have along the way.</p>
<p>CONGRATS EVERYONE so far i heard back from seven schools and was accepted to all of them:</p>
<p>Penn State University Park
Temple
Drexel
Hofstra
University of Pittsburgh
James Madison University
Rutgers</p>
<p>But still waiting for:
University of Maryland CP: My Top choice
Syracuse
UConn</p>
<p>GOODLUCK TO EVERYONE STILL WAITING</p>
<p>I love it when students visit here and give us updates! Congrats, invader! And r0kAng, isn’t it wonderful that a school believes in you so much to help you with that much aid? Terrific!</p>
<p>Emmybet - thank you for sharing these thoughts. I have always told my two Ds that I only ask that they do their best and felt very virtuous saying it… I felt that was so much better than some of the moms I knew who just pushed constantly for the best results. Your post really opened my eyes though because I have felt for some time that D2 did NOT do her best throughout high school. She is definitely as smart as D1 but there were just times that I felt she wasn’t pushing herself hard enough to do her best. If you knew me, you’d know I didn’t say that out loud to her but I’m sure I’ve sent that message subliminally.</p>
<p>Now I’m sitting here realizing that she DID do her best - it just wasn’t by my definition. Those times she didn’t seem to push herself? There were a lot of factors at work in her life and I’m sure she did the best she could.</p>
<p>I’m so glad that I found this thread when I did. D2 has a number of acceptances in the bag but is still waiting for her #1. And she is soooo on the bubble there that I can’t even guess what will happen. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how different these last few weeks could have been if her GPA were just a little higher. Or if she had just managed to raise her ACT score 1 or 2 points. And now I’m thinking - what will be wiill be. She WILL deal with the outcome if school #1 says “no thanks”. The only reason she won’t is if she senses that I am disappointed in some way. And it’s my job to make sure she knows that I am not - I am indeed proud of her for so many reasons and now I can scratch “grades and test scores” off my small internal list of things I wish I could change.</p>
<p>
Our son was deferred from one of his reaches. They used these words of Emmybet’s almost to a tee. Further, they said a deferral is not a soft rejection. Your child is definitely a great candidate. Please send us the following to strengthen his app: xyz. He did, we’ll see. Even tho it is a reach, it is not a favorite. Probably will be too much work. Unbalanced life. Not enuf time for other important things you learn/do in college.</p>
<p>It turns out my D’s GC does send midyear grades to all the schools they’ve applied to. There was some communications glitch. I guess she meant they wouldn’t send quarter grades. My D is very happy now-- she’s worked hard and done very well this last semester and is glad those grades will “count.” (Even if they don’t count-- i.e. we’ll never know if the schools pay any attention, but at least they will go out there.)</p>
<p>Invader, well done!! Congratulations!</p>
<p>When my kid gets rejected - and she WILL be rejected, CANNOT get into all of her schools (regular reaches and auditioned programs, too? I don’t think so) - I will be sad. There are a couple where I might silently wail, “Oh, come ON? What are you thinking, people?” What I ride on now is that she already has a great acceptance so her whole life isn’t riding on hypothetical answers. I know she will get several more “yeses.” When all is said and done, she will get accepted to the school(s) that are right for her.</p>
<p>But I know I will quickly decide about the rejections that if she wasn’t right for them, they weren’t right for her. A shock because she was a top applicant? Maybe they knew she’d feel unchallenged. A disappointment because a top school wouldn’t take a chance on her? What FlMathMom said - she doesn’t need a place where she’s always scrambling.</p>
<p>Shoot, we might feel that way if some of the top schools accept her, too …</p>
<p>proudmom - I am right with you. I will NOT let the process define how my kid thinks I feel about her. I will be proud, proud, proud. I already am. Enough people have tried to shoot her down in her short life. I won’t be one of them. Firm? Yes. Standards? Yes. Agreement about what we expect when we’re paying for school? Of course. But always proud and always looking forward.</p>
<p>Hi all! - Sorry for being away so long! What a busy place - and filled with celebrations, good news, love in the face of not-so-good news, and encouraging words. This thread helps me in so many ways - thank you all for your posts and updates!</p>
<p>S is fine here, finishing last two apps today and then waiting. I on the other hand am a nervous wreck as it looks like there may be huge cutbacks in September both at my work and at H’s. Am trying not to panic thinking that we will need to make a decision may 1 about committing to college, but won’t know our employment / pay outlook until probably August. I’m not really succeeding in the “don’t panic” realm!
I plan to move toward keeping my fingers crossed for a big scholarship to come through, because the chance of us coming up with our EFC with this new job info. is very slim indeed.
Thanks for being here for the anonymous sharing :)</p>
<p>I love reading everyone’s news. It’s hard to keep up with this thread. I was gone several days, but we did get S’s RIT ED acceptance finally today, so he’s set to study video game design. It’s his dream, so he’s following it, I hope it works out for him!</p>
<p>r0kAng3l, my D is a junior at GW and loves it there.</p>
<p>Ds is killing me on these scholarship deadlines, I remember someone telling the story about running around trying to find a post office that is open and guess who is doing that right this minute??? And the scholarship details like transcript needs to either be emailed from the GC or mailed in a sealed envelope. Well ds did remember to ask for the transcript and the GCs signature on the app, but didn’t get an envelope, GC just gave him the transcript…AND you know I am really really good on the recycling so that any paper sitting around, gets to the recycling center every week so I don’t have any HS envelopes around…oh if I had only kept the progress report envelope or the ski club notification envelope…crying over spilled milk aren’t I? Why does it always have to be so last minute with him?</p>
<p>Note to self: 1 out of 4 post offices close at noon on Saturdays. The one that is open has no parking, just street parking and a police station across the street. Oh and you need to learn how to parallel park.</p>
<p>Hey, at least you have something to mail!!! STILL waiting on bluejr… >:@</p>